RALEIGH — The strength of both the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment in granting freedom to the enslaved will be examined during a lecture at the State Archives on Saturday, Feb. 16, at 1 p.m., in the State Archives/State Library Building at 109 E. Jones Street in Raleigh.
Who Freed Who: Emancipation and the 13th Amendment is the talk being given by Dr. Gerald Prokopowicz, East Carolina University. The Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in those states in rebellion and occupied by the United States troops. It was a War Powers Act executed by President Lincoln. The 13th Amendment was enacted by Congress to prohibit slavery. The effect of the documents was similar, but the intention and type of action was different.
Prokopowicz is author of “Did Lincoln Own Slaves?” and is the online host of Civil War Talk Radio. He was the resident Lincoln scholar at the Lincoln Museum in Fort Wayne, Ind., and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College. He is chair of the History Department of East Carolina University in Greenville.
The State Archives of North Carolina collects, preserves and makes available for public use historical and evidential materials relating to North Carolina. Its holdings consist of official records of state, county and local governmental units, copies of federal and foreign government materials and private collections.
For more information call the State Archives at (919) 807-7326. The State Archives is a division of the Office of Archives and History of the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources.